


Oh, Brother Mine

by glitterpop



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Graphic Violence, Pedophiliac Tendencies, Physical Abuse, Sibling Incest, Unrequited, Violence, Yandere!Tadashi, dark!Tadashi, evil!tadashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4015936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpop/pseuds/glitterpop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tadashi has always loved Hiro the best</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Brother Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InkStainsOnMyHands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkStainsOnMyHands/gifts).



> WARNING: THIS STORY DEPICTS A SEVERELY ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, ALONG WITH MENTAL ILLNESS AND HALLUCINATIONS OF A GRAPHIC NATURE THAT INVOLVE INSECTS. PLEASE READ THE TAGS CAREFULLY AND DECIDE IF THIS IS SOMETHING YOU WANT TO BE EXPOSED TO AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. I DO NOT CONDONE OR ENDORSE ANY BEHAVIOUR SEEN IN THIS STORY, IT'S PURELY FICTIONAL
> 
> Okay, now that it's out of the way...
> 
> This story is for [soakedwithink](http://www.soakedwithink.tumblr.com/), who is a patient friend and a horrible enabler. They wrote 4,000 words of A/B/O smut, and I decided to retaliate with 20,000 words of horror and awfulness. Lord knows why

Tadashi likes to sneak into the Hiro’s room while the baby sleeps. He had used to do it more often; in the mornings before Hiro woke up, whenever he went down for a nap, in the dead of night. He used to do it more often, but he had quickly grown tired of the way his parent’s had cooed at them, saying it was adorable how devoted Tadashi already was to the newborn. He had frowned, but hadn’t disagreed.

Now he just sneaks in at night, when the moon is high in the sky and his parents are fast asleep.

He stands at the edge of the crib and looks down at the sleeping infant. Hiro never looks very happy when he’s asleep, face always scrunched up, limbs moving restlessly. Tadashi had expressed to his mother once, only once, that Hiro wasn’t a very cute baby. She had jumped a little, looking at him with startled eyes.

They worried about him, his parents. Worried about the way he would act, or rather wouldn’t act, and the way he very rarely spoke. They had taken him to some doctors, but they’d all said the same thing. “There’s nothing wrong with him,” they would say, looking at their clipboards and at his parents instead of Tadashi himself. “Nothing physical or mental we can find. He just seems to be a quiet, reserved boy.” He had thought about arguing, about mentioning the black, empty self he felt inside of him, but decided that the doctors wouldn’t understand.

So his mother had looked at him with startled eyes, unaware of the emptiness inside her son, before laughing and cuddling the baby closer to her.

“He’s _adorable_ ,” she had disagreed, nuzzling her nose against the baby’s. Tadashi had frowned fiercely at that, but his mother didn’t see. “Give it a few months and you’ll agree.”

Tadashi still didn’t think Hiro was very cute, but he was his little brother, and he was precious in a way Tadashi wasn’t sure he could ever describe. He stands on his tiptoes, leaning over the edge of the crib, and watches his brother sleep silently and expressionlessly. He wonders what Hiro is dreaming about, to cause him to move so restlessly. Could babies even dream? He isn’t sure.

He’s overcome with the desire that, if Hiro _can_ dream, that he dreams of Tadashi.

Like he dreams of Hiro.

He glances over at the baby monitor, frowning, before reaching into the crib and smoothing the back of his fingers over Hiro’s brow. Hiro’s face scrunches a little more before smoothing out completely, his mouth opening a little. Tadashi blinks, suddenly seeing what his mother meant when she called him adorable. He moves his fingers from the baby’s brow to his cheek and stops, contemplating.

He remembers the anthill suddenly. A few weeks after Hiro had been born, Tadashi had been playing outside by himself when he had seen an anthill. He’d stopped and observed the insects crawling around it, some of them carrying things, coming and going. Minding their business, whatever it had been. He’d walked over to it, merely watching, before he had started to crush the bugs under his fingers. He’d entertained himself this way for an hour, crushing the ants on the ground and the ones that crawled onto him. He’d been fascinated, seeing creatures so much smaller and more helpless than him and having the power to do what he wanted to them. He’d only stopped when he had been called to come inside.

He thinks of those ants, looking down at his baby brother. Hiro was so small, his little fist only able to wrap around one of his fingers. Small and helpless, just like the ants he had spent an hour killing. Would it be that easy to crush Hiro? He presses a little harder into Hiro’s cheek and the baby turns his head into the touch, murmuring a little.

Yes, it would be that easy.

He looks away, glances out the window. He stays like that for long minutes, watching the moon and thinking of crushing a small baby for no other reason than that he could.

He thinks of someone else trying to crush Hiro then. He thinks of someone else’s dirty hands going near his brother, wanting to hurt him, to destroy him. Someone that doesn’t know Hiro, that doesn’t care. Hiro would just be another face. A very small face, but nothing special. He breathes out, slowly, and looks back down at the baby.

“He’s mine,” he says softly. “He’s mine.” A little louder now, a promise to himself and the world. Hiro is his, in every sense of the word, and no one could hurt him.

“He’s mine,” he says a final time, and he glances back at the baby monitor.

-

“Go on, baby, say ‘mommy’.”

“No, Hiro, say ‘daddy’!”

Tadashi glances up from the model he’s fiddling with. His parents are seated on the floor, gathered around Hiro in his little seat. He’s been babbling more lately, making different sounds, and his parents are convinced that he’s close to saying his first word. The idea amuses Tadashi; Hiro isn’t even a year old yet, so even if he could talk, he wouldn’t have much to say. Still, it would be nice to talk with his little brother and hear actual words.

He scrunches up his face when his mom grabs up Hiro’s feet, tickling them and getting the baby into a laughing fit. He didn’t much like it when they started getting grabby with Hiro, wished that they would keep their hands to themselves most of the time. He knew better than to actually _say_ this to them, of course, but he couldn’t help the way it set him on edge regardless.

Some nights he would stay in his room, laying in his bed and replaying the moments his parents touched his brother, and he would let the bad feelings fester and bubble inside him.

He liked the way it made him feel, a little.

“Hiro, baby, we all know you want to say ‘mommy’ first.” His father scoffs, stealing the baby’s feet from his mom’s hands, tickling them himself. Tadashi frowns even more. He loves the way the baby laughs, even though sometimes it sets his skin crawling. Sometimes he loves the way Hiro laughs _because_ it sets his skin crawling. He loves the laugh but hates hearing it when someone else is making him laugh. It always makes his teeth clench, makes his stomach roll. He would watch Hiro laughing and think, _only I can make him laugh like that,_ and it would be true. It will always be true.

“Well, Hiro knows that if he says ‘daddy’ first, he’ll get a special treat.”

“You can’t _bribe a baby_.”

“I think I just did.”

Hiro coos at his parents and Tadashi finally sets the model down. He slowly stands up and walks over to where his parents sit, never taking his eyes off Hiro. Hiro sees him and grins up at him, toothless and beaming. His parents notice and look at him, smiling.

“Tadashi,” his mother says warmly, reaching out and brushing the hair off his face. “You think Hiro will say ‘mommy’ first, don’t you?”

“I’m sure he’ll agree with me, darling.”

He doesn’t answer, but they aren’t really expecting one from him. They turn back to the baby, cooing and cajoling. Tadashi crouches down, resting on his knees, and offers a hand to Hiro. The baby immediately grabs up one of his fingers, a burbling laugh escaping him as Tadashi wiggles it around in his grip. Tadashi smiles and feels his skin crawl again at the sound. It feels… It feels like…

“Hiro,” he says instead of continuing that thought. His parents jump next to him, even though they’re mostly used to Tadashi speaking so freely to his brother by now. “Are you going to talk?” Hiro babbles a little more, blinking his eyes and looking from his brother to his parents.

“Da, da da daaa…” His father makes an excited noise, leaning closer while his mother whispers ‘no’ under her breath, drawing out the ‘o’ sound for a couple seconds.

“It isn’t fair that you get both their first words,” his mother whines, trying to pout but unable to hide her smile. His father merely grins and continues to encourage Hiro.

“C’mon baby, that’s it, you got the first part right! Now just keep going, say ‘daddy!’” Tadashi is watching Hiro with the same rapt interest as his parents. The same rapt interest he always has on his face when observing his brother. He wonders if Hiro really will say something, if this is just a fluke. He wonders if Hiro will say ‘daddy’, or if he’ll turn around and say ‘mommy’ instead.

He wonders—

“’das-i.” His parents both freeze, expressions morphing from excitement to surprise to shock.

“Did… That didn’t sound like daddy.”

“No,” his mother says wonderingly, looking to her eldest son. “No, I think he said Tadashi’s name.”

“’dashi!” Hiro repeats, more clearly. He waves his arms around excitedly, grinning up at his brother. “’dashi, ‘dashi, ‘dashi!” Tadashi smiles and tries to calm his heart. His skin is still crawling when he smooth’s his hands down his arms, and he thinks he should be surprised to feel tiny bumps under his fingers. Thinks he should be, but he’s more surprised that he isn’t surprised by it.

Something for another day, he figures as he reaches out and picks up his brother.

“Come here, I’ll show you my model.” He takes Hiro, who is still babbling his name happily, and walks away from his parents who watch him go silently.

-

He sneaks out of his room that night, wanting to go to Hiro’s room and watch him sleep, and is surprised to hear voices coming from downstairs. Creeping down the hallway, he sees the light on in the kitchen and blinks. It’s late, he knows it is because he has a clock in his room. He also knows that it’s a work night, and his parents are always in bed at this hour.

He climbs down the stairs silently, avoiding the sixth step that always creaks. The voices get louder, but it becomes obvious that they’re trying to keep the volume low. Trying not to wake either of them, Tadashi realizes suddenly. He wonders what they could be discussing so late at night. He gets close to the kitchen entrance and hears, “—just seems odd, especially at this age.”

“We should be taking this as a good sign, dear,” his mother replies, except she sounds exasperated and confused. He blinks. They’re talking about either him or Hiro, he thinks.

He has an idea that this conversation isn’t about his brother though.

“He’s seven, though,” his father says, confirming his thoughts. “He should be so much more communicative at this age, but the only person he’ll talk to is an infant.”

“At least he’s talking now,” and his mother sounds so worn down that he backs away from the door, just a little. “It’s better than when we would get only a couple sentences a month. This is _progress_. This is what the doctor said we should be looking for.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Well… He talks more, that’s true, and I agree that it’s a good thing. Haven’t you noticed that he won’t really look at anyone but Hiro though? I’m worried it’ll affect him.”

“That’s enough,” his mother snaps, but Tadashi doesn’t need to hear anymore. He rushes back upstairs as quietly as he can and stands on the top step, looking down then turning to look back down the hallway.

It isn’t really, Tadashi thinks as he walks towards Hiro’s room, that what his father said hurt his feelings. Everything he had said is the truth, of course. Tadashi doesn’t have much interest in anyone besides his brother anymore. Hiro is everything he could have wanted, everything he always dreamed of having. Someone that will stay by his side, that will love him first and always. That’s what brothers did, wasn’t it? Love each other before everyone? Stay together no matter what?

That’s what he and Hiro would be.

So it isn’t that what his father said had hurt his feelings.

It’s more that, he decides as he reaches out and grips the doorknob on Hiro’s door, he’s upset that his parents _noticed._ It feels like an invasion of his privacy. What he and Hiro have is _special._ He doesn’t think anyone else should be aware of how special it is. He thinks, with everything that he has, that Hiro is his special, private secret. Tadashi shares him with his parents because he has no choice, not right now, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hiro isn’t theirs. He wants them to know this, but he also wants them to not know that Hiro has always, and will always, be his.

He’s about to twist the knob and visit his sleeping brother, but he pauses and looks back at the stairs, and wonders. Is it worth it, to go see his brother right now and chance that they’ll catch him? They thought he had stopped the habit of watching Hiro sleep. He didn’t think it would do any good right now for them to find out he had never stopped, had waited until they couldn’t usher him away from the baby’s side.

He hates the idea of not having Hiro to himself tonight, but he also hates the idea of having to share this knowledge with his parents.

He backs away from the door, looking back at it and thinking of his tiny brother, small and safe and warm inside his crib, before shuffling back to his room. He goes and lays down in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He remembers, when he was younger, his mother telling him to count sheep to help him fall asleep. He had tried it, and the sheep had always had black holes where their eyes should be. He had tried it but it had never worked.

Now, instead of eyeless sheep, he closes his eyes and thinks of tiny fingers and tiny toes and drifts off to sleep like that.

He dreams that he’s in the living room with Hiro, no parents around. He dreams he leans forward and Hiro touches his face. “’dashi,” Hiro says in his dream, before reaching up and popping Tadashi’s eye out of his head, easy as you please. He reaches up and touches his face, and when he takes it away, he dreams that his fingers are crawling with ants. Ants from his empty eye socket. He dreams Hiro laughs, clutching Tadashi’s stolen eye.

He wakes up to a sunlit room, breathing deep and staring at the ceiling. His skin is crawling again, but there’s no Hiro laughing this time. His skin is crawling, but he thinks of the ants on his fingers, the ants he had killed months before, and shudders, not unpleasantly.

-

Time passes slowly for Tadashi, who has no real care for it, but he watches as Hiro grows from a sometimes ugly, sometimes cute baby into an adorable, mischievous toddler. He can tell that his parents like Hiro more than they like him, but he doesn’t blame them. He certainly likes Hiro more than he likes them. Hiro likes to mess with his models when he steps away from them, he likes to tug Tadashi’s hair to get his attention. He likes to make up stories and run around the house screaming.

Hiro likes to sneak into Tadashi’s room and share a bed with his big brother, and their parents think it’s strange, just a little.

Hiro is three, a loveable toddler, and Tadashi is ten, and he’s never been angrier in his life than he is at this moment.

Aunt Cass shakes as she drives the truck, too busy trying to see through her tears to notice her nephew seething. He doesn’t care. _He doesn’t care._ All he cares about is the image in his mind; Hiro, grinning in his light up sneakers, waving good-bye from their father’s arms.

“Bye-bye, ‘dashi!” Tadashi had smiled thinly, upset already at being left behind. He hadn’t wanted to stay with Aunt Cass while Hiro went to the doctor’s, had wanted to go with his brother. He’d asked, just a couple times, to please _may I please_ go with them, which showed his parents just how badly he hadn’t wanted to be separated. They’d thinned their lips but tried to smile.

“It’s just a check-up, sweetie,” his mother had said, crouching down and brushing the hair out of his eyes. Tadashi had huffed, upset, because he knew that wasn’t why he was being left behind. They had taken him to a few more doctors over the years, and they all kept telling them that there were no developmental problems, that he was just quiet, just more reserved at this age. They thought that he should be different, even if they wouldn’t say it out loud. That he should make friends at school and let Hiro develop normally.

So he had been made to watch Hiro leave him.

_“Bye-bye ‘dashi!”_

And now he might never see his brother again, and the thought of that sets something under his skin buzzing.

He had spent most of the time at his aunt’s watching her new kitten sleep. Mochi was small, seemingly nothing but fur and eyes, and he had watched his chest rise and fall evenly. Aunt Cass had caught him at it, an hour into it, and had cocked her head at the two.

“Is this a hobby?” she had asked, sounding genuinely curious. Tadashi had turned and looked at her for a few seconds before turning his eyes back to the sleeping cat. Aunt Cass had stood there a moment longer before shrugging and going back to her business. He liked that about her; she was content to let him be, whether it was just watching her cat or playing with Hiro. It all seemed fine to her.

He didn’t think she needed to know that he was imagining what Mochi looked like under his fur and skin, all red and wet and leaking.

So he had sat and watched Mochi, and watched the clock, waiting for Hiro to return so they could be together again. Every minute that passed set him a little further on edge. By the time three hours had passed, he was close to tearing his hair out. He had gone to find his aunt sitting in the living room and reading, and he’d gone up and pointed at the clock.

“Hm?” she’d asked, blinking at him then at the clock. “Oh! Don’t worry, sweetie. Sometimes doctor’s take a while to see patients. You know that, don’t you?” He had thought back to all the doctor’s he had seen, the hours sitting and waiting, feeling his parents eyes in the back of his head as he ignored the toys and children. She had laughed when he jutted his chin out and pointed more harshly at the clock. “They’ll be back soon, and you and your best friend can play then, okay?” It hadn’t been okay, but he knew when he was defeated and wandered off. He’d glared at the floor when he found Mochi had woken up and left his spot.

Another two hours had passed by the time Aunt Cass began to tap her fingers together, looking at the clock with her own worry.

“How about I call and see what’s up, okay kiddo?” Tadashi had nodded violently, hoping that they would let him talk to Hiro. Except she had ended up holding the phone to her ear for a minute before pulling back, giving him a strained smile. “They must be seeing the doctor,” she had said, convincing neither of them. “It’s okay,” but her eyes betrayed her as they strayed back to the clock.

A few minutes later the phone had rang, and his aunt had barely looked at the caller I.D before snatching it up.

“There you are! We were just wondering where you guys are, Tadashi’s about to lose his mind without Hiro here—Oh? …Yes, I’m her sister…” Tadashi watches her face closely, wondering who’s on the phone, wondering if they’ll let Hiro come talk to him. “Yes… I see. Yes, I have their other son… Okay, where? … We’ll be there.” She hung up the phone and let it drop, staring at the opposite wall blankly for a few moments before turning to Tadashi. “C’mon honey, let’s get in the truck.”

“Hiro?” he asked, feeling a spike of alarm.

“There’s been an accident,” his aunt said, almost dreamily, as she took his hand and lead him to the garage. “Your parents were in a car crash. They’ll tell us more at the hospital.”

“ _Hiro?_ ” he repeated, not really caring about anything else.

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

Aunt Cass didn’t start crying until she started the truck, fat tears dripping down her cheeks, falling off her trembling chin. Tadashi watched her back the truck out of the garage, watched her steer towards the hospital while taking short, hiccupping breaths. He watched his aunt cry and felt an awful, swelling rage come over him. His fingers shook with the force of it, and looking down he had seen his flesh pebble and rise in hard bumps.

It had looked like he was squirming under his flesh.

Hiro likes to mess up his models, or sometimes even finish them before Tadashi can. He likes yanking on Tadashi’s hair first thing in the morning. He likes to steal food off of Tadashi’s plate. He likes to pop up from behind corners and scream before running away, shrieking laughter as Tadashi chases him. He likes to sleep in Tadashi room because sometimes he has nightmares, he likes to cuddle close to Tadashi’s side, and he always marvels that his little brother can’t feel the way his flesh crawls at the touch.

Hiro likes to unbuckle his car seat, just because he can.

So now he stares out the window, waiting to get to the hospital, waiting to hear more doctors talk at him like he doesn’t know anything. He sits and he hates. He hates his aunt for how long it took her to notice something wrong, he hates her at every red light they stop at. He hates Mochi, he hates whatever had caused the accident, he hates the doctor’s he’ll see that will know more about his brother’s condition than he will. He hates his parents the most, for not taking him, for leaving him behind and letting Hiro get hurt. Or worse, and he shakes more at that.

He hates Hiro, just a little, for being so vulnerable without Tadashi there with him.

It feels like an eternity before they get to the hospital, and when they finally do get there Tadashi is out of the truck almost before it stops. His aunt shrieks his name and he stops impatiently, glaring at the sky until she catches up to him. They rush inside together, and from there it’s close to a blur for him. He sees the doctor with blood on his coat, he sees his aunt fall to her knees, wailing. The doctor leans down and puts his hand on his shoulder, looking tired and sad.

“I’m sorry son,” he says, and Tadashi almost snarls at him. “Your parents didn’t make it.”

Tadashi blinks.

He thinks of his mother, sitting by his bed and singing lullabies. He thinks of his father, sitting with him and explaining his robotics projects to him. He thinks of their family dinners, and the way they had laughed during movies. He thinks of the way they had used to hold his hands, together, to cross parking lots. He thinks of birthdays and Christmases and his parents telling him they loved him.

He thinks of doctor’s, of waiting and waiting and waiting and always being told the same thing. He thinks of the way they would watch him with frowns when they thought he wasn’t looking. He thinks of the way his mother had cooed at him when he had glued himself to his newborn brother’s side, and the way the cooing had turned to worry as months and years passed and nothing changed. He thinks of his father, crying in the middle of the night when he thought Tadashi had fallen asleep, asking his wife what was wrong with their child.

He thinks of them at the door today, with cautious, nervous smiles on their faces, as his father held Hiro in his arms.

He blinks again.

“What about Hiro?” His aunt’s head snaps up at his question, horror in her eyes. He hates her a little more right then when he realizes that she hadn’t even thought of Hiro until that moment.

“Your brother’s being seen by doctors now,” the man says slowly. “He broke his arm and suffered some lacerations, and we’re worried about a concussion.” Tadashi thinks he’s going to scream, wants to claw at this man’s face until it’s nothing but a mess of blood and mush. How _dare_ he talk about Hiro’s injuries so casually, how _dare_ he. He’s about to leap forward when the doctor continues, blithely ignorant of how close Tadashi is to harming him, “We think he’ll make a full recovery though.”

His knees turn watery at those words, but he refuses to collapse in front of this man. His aunt starts weeping again, muttering “thank God” under her breath over and over again. Tadashi doesn’t believe in God, always pictures a man with black eyes and bleeding gums when he thinks of God, but he’s willing to praise anyone at this point.

Hiro is alive.

_Hiro is alive._

He and his aunt sit down and wait to be able to see Hiro, and in his good mood he allows Aunt Cass to cuddle him a little. He watches the clock, feeling his aunt’s chest hitch with every sob she tries to suppress. It’s an hour before they’re allowed to go to his brother’s room, and he follows so close on the doctor’s heels that he almost trips the man.

Hiro is asleep when they arrive, “On a lot of pain medication,” is what the doctor says. It doesn’t stop Tadashi from bolting forward, clambering onto the bed and cuddling as close as he can to his brother without hurting him, or waking him up. He hears his aunt let out a shaky sigh and walk over, sitting down next to the bed. It’s silent for long minutes after that, and Tadashi closes his eyes and breathes in, smelling medicine and blood and Hiro.

“Tadashi…” He doesn’t turn at the voice, but he hums a little, utterly pleased to be with his brother. “Things… Things are going to get harder from here, but I promise—“ Her voice chokes a little, and he hears her swallow. When she speaks again, her voice is a little stronger, a little more sure. “I promise I’ll do everything I can for you boys. No matter what. I’m…” The strength fades from her voice, and he hears her begin to cry again. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

_Why?_ He thinks, nuzzling his nose in Hiro’s hair. _I haven’t lost anything._

-

“Mommy,” Hiro sobs against his shoulder.

“Shh,” he soothes, hitching Hiro more securely in his arms. “Shh, it’s okay.” Hiro continues to cry, and Tadashi runs his fingers up and down his back as best he can without loosening his grip.

They’re standing in front of two graves, their parent’s names etched into marble along with the day they died. There are some sweet words written alongside the rest, loving husband, loving wife, loving parents… He stares at those words for a long moment before tearing his eyes away.

Most of the attendees for the funeral are adults Tadashi has never seen before. Work friends of his parents, he supposes. They stand silently around the graves, some sniffling, most with their heads lowered respectfully. They’d come up to them at first, to offer their condolences. Aunt Cass had accepted them graciously, her eyes red and swollen, thanking them for coming out. Hiro was too busy crying though, and Tadashi was too busy holding him to even glance at the adults. Why bother? None of them would remember him in a few hours anyways.

One of them had reached out and tried to touch the crying toddler’s back at one point, and Tadashi had curled his lip at her and hugged the boy closer.

“I’m very sorry about your parents,” the woman had said, eyes wide and shocked, wet with tears. Her mouth had fallen open a little when all he had done was look her over before rolling his eyes, turning away and hugging Hiro closer.

“He’s very upset,” his aunt had deflected, touching the woman’s elbow. The woman had continued to gape, looking sullen now, but had shrugged and wandered off. He thought she had gone to find other people she could play sympathy with to make herself feel better. He doesn’t much care for these people around. None of them have ever been around the house, none of them knew his parents outside of work. They mix up his and Hiro’s names constantly, and he looks at their slumped shoulders and soft, grief-worn mouths with nothing but contempt.

If they want to act so sympathetic and miserable, he thinks, they can all just dig graves of their own and climb into them. They can climb down and lay on their backs, bemoan how cruel and sudden death can be, and he can shovel the dirt on top of their bodies. They can lay there and they can rot.

He thinks of worms crawling into these people’s eyes, beetles replacing their teeth, and smiles a little.

Tadashi turns his head and kisses Hiro on the cheek, continuing to try and soothe him. Some of the adults had expressed that Hiro must be so confused, poor thing, wondering where his mommy and daddy were. Tadashi had glared at them. No one ever believes that Hiro is smarter than they could ever dream him to be at this age. He understands where his parents are, he knows what happened.

Tadashi had told him himself, laying in the hospital.

“Where’s mommy?” Hiro had asked, his eyes half-lidded with drowsiness. Aunt Cass had wrung her hands together, visibly struggled with how to go about with telling Hiro what happened. Tadashi had rolled his eyes. Hiro was his alone now, and he would be the only one Hiro went to.

“She’s dead.”

“Tadashi!” He looked at her, unperturbed by her shocked voice.

“She is. Her and dad are dead, Hiro.” Hiro had been silent for a minute, a frown slowly crawling onto his face.

“Dead?” he’d finally asked, looking to Tadashi. He’d smiled at the gaze, happy to be the one Hiro focused on.

“Yeah, like that bird we found in the backyard.” Hiro’s face had morphed into one of horror. They’d found that bird together, just a few months ago. It had been behind the tree, had probably been there for only a day or so. Ants crawled all over its body, trying to find the good bits to take away for food. Tadashi had been fascinated, had imagined its decomposition in high speed, the ants and the bloating, then the decaying and beetles and worms. Hiro had been sent into hysterics, though. He’d cried and screamed, scared by the unmoving bird and scared by the ants taking it apart. Tadashi had drawn him into his arms, had cuddled and shushed and drawn him away from the bird’s body, not really understanding why Hiro didn’t like it like he did.

“No!”

“Yeah, they died in the crash—“

“Tadashi, that’s enough!”

“What?” he’d asked, wheeling on her. She’d backed up, visibly startled; Tadashi rarely showed emotions so intensely like this, rarely ever strung an emotional sentence together to anyone but Hiro. “He needs to know the truth. What were you planning on doing to tell him?” Her mouth twisted, and for a moment he had thought she’d lose her temper at him. He’d welcomed the idea at the time, bristling for a slap, a knock, anything. His teeth rattled in his jaw, and he had felt his eyes vibrate deep in his skull.

Yes, he’d thought, he would have very much liked to see her try to hit him.

She hadn’t, though. Hiro had started to cry, great, braying sobs coming from his small chest. His aunt had looked at the toddler, and she’d looked like she was going to go to him. Looked like it, but Tadashi beat her to it. He’d clambered up onto the bed, crawling close and fitting himself around his brother.

“It’s okay,” he’d whispered. “It’s okay, we’re both okay.”

Hiro had still cried, and he continues to cry now in Tadashi’s arms. His sounds are starting to come slower now, though, and softer. Tiring himself out. He figures Hiro will be asleep by the time the funeral is over, and will probably sleep all through the car ride. Longer, Tadashi hopes, remembering the sleepless nights. If Tadashi picks him up gently and walks slowly, he might sleep longer.

Hiro needs the sleep.

Tadashi’s heart twitches in his chest.

Hiro’s face grows so soft when he sleeps. Soft and sweet and lax. His cheeks plump out and grow steadily pinker the more time passes. He sprawls wherever it is he’s sleeping, muscles relaxing, head lolling on his shoulders. Hiro likes to cuddle, likes to curl around whatever’s closest to him. He has dozens of stuffed animals, all well-worn with love. The best times, though, are when he will climb into Tadashi’s bed and curl around him like one of his stuffed bears. He doesn’t sleep those nights, feeling the inhale-exhale of the small body next to his, matching their breaths, matching their hearts.

Tadashi likes it when Hiro’s asleep.

A hand on his shoulder makes him tense, throwing a dirty look at the person that got too close to his drowsing brother. His aunt gives him a startled look, drawing her fingers away. He breathes out harshly, glancing around. The unknown adults are starting to leave, shuffling their feet awkwardly. The priest has his head bowed a little over the graves, perhaps a final prayer. Everyone was finally finished prostrating in front of people that couldn’t care less now. He looks back at his aunt, calmer now, and she offers him a smile.

“He must be heavy, sleeping like that. How about I carry him now, huh?” He shakes his head, stepping back and casting a final look at the grave markers.

He isn’t planning on bringing it up himself, but if anyone would ask how he’s feeling right at this moment, he’d tell them honestly that he is a little relieved. His parents had been the one obstacle in his life, the one thing he had no option of working around. Tadashi had had no choice but to share Hiro completely with them, no matter how much it pained him. They were the only other people that could claim those rights over Hiro as well, and having them gone…

He doesn’t blame Hiro for missing them, but he knows it will pass.

“How about just to the car? Your arms could use a break…” He shakes his head harder, casting her a cold glance before hitching Hiro more securely in his arms and walking out to the parking lot.

There was no one else in the world he had to share Hiro with now, and he planned on making that very clear.

-

He wakes up in the middle of the night, wrapped tightly around Hiro, and finds he needs the restroom. Disentangling himself brings a grumpy noise out of Hiro, which only brings a smile to Tadashi’s face. He makes his way quickly out of the room and down the hallway, to the bathroom to do his business. Washing his hands after, he glances down and finds small bumps covering his forearms. He smooth’s his hands over them, still damp, expecting them to slowly fade as they usually do.

He pauses when, instead of fading, they move.

He can faintly hear the water still running in the sink as he brings a finger up, poking at a small cluster of bumps near his wrist. They all scattered away from the pressure, and when they do Tadashi can feel the scuttling under his skin. He breathes out shaky, audible, as he rips open one of the cabinet drawers, eyes never leaving his arm.

Searching fingers eventually find a pair of tweezers. He tears them out and, gripping them tightly, makes a stab at his arm. He catches a small pinch of flesh and twists harshly. A few tugs and twists and the flesh finally rips, creating a small, almost circle shaped hole in his arm.

After a moment of tedious waiting, small legs poke and twist out of the wound.

Tadashi watches, enraptured, as a baby spider emerges from his bleeding arm. It shines a glossy red in the light, and its spindly legs carry it over his arm, down the back of his hand and off his fingers. He licks his lips, feeling giddy and a little light headed, and utters a short laugh. He brings the tweezers back to his arm, pinching and tearing a new hole into it.

_That’s what’s wrong with me dad,_ he thinks a little viciously, watching spider after spider climb out of him with every hole he tears open. _The one thing doctors never bothered to look for. Your son is infested with spiders, that’s what wrong with me, are you happy now?_

Time turns watery for him after that. He isn’t sure how long he spends standing there, twisting his arm this way and that as he tears into it with the tweezers. He’s only sure of the spiders, black and red with blood, scurrying down his arm and away from him. He’s only sure of the blood that went from a few splatters to dripping freely. He finds that if he tears a hole wide enough, two or three spiders will exit the same wound.

By the time he hears the panicked shout from the doorway, he’s torn dozens and dozens of holes in his right arm and has moved onto his left. He shoots his head up, gasping for air he didn’t realize he wasn’t breathing. Aunt Cass is in the doorway, her finger clawed into her cheeks, mouth open and twisted in horror.

“ _Tadashi!_ ” His name rips out of her throat as she rushes forward, crashing to her knees. “Oh _Tadashi,_ sweetie, why… Oh honey, the _blood._ ”

It takes him a moment to understand that she can’t see the spiders on him, to notice that they aren’t even going near her. He bites his lips to keep back the laughter he can feel tickling the back of his throat, because of course she can’t see them. Of course she can’t. He bites his lips and refuses to answer her questions, not caring how desperate and scared she sounds.

She sits him on the toilet and they spend the next ten minutes in silence as she cleans and bandages his arms. When she dabs the antiseptic on his arms he almost throws his head back, almost hisses at the way it burns, the way it makes his toes curl and stretch. Almost does, but is too fascinated by the spiders. They jerk and spasm and scatter, twisting and sprinting out of his arm, away from the burning. He shivers at the feeling of so many little legs racing across his skin.

“I know you miss your parents,” his aunt finally says, close to a whisper. She’s wrapping bandages around his arms, not looking him in the eye, and he watches the top of her head closely for a second before looking back down. “I know you do. I miss them too, but… This isn’t the way to deal with these feelings, honey. This isn’t what they would have wanted.”

_No,_ he agrees silently, watching the bandages twitch. _They hadn’t wanted me at all, not really._

“And what about Hiro? What if he had walked in and seen this?” He yanks his arm away and finally focuses on her, growling. She’s looking at him too, looking worn and not surprised. “Do you think he would have wanted to see you like this?”

He hates the way his brother’s name falls so casually from her tongue. He hates how she can just assume something like that of his brother. He hates, he _hates,_ and he feels his skin bulging and twitching again and—

And he finally begins to understand.

_Hiro._ It was always Hiro. When he laughs, when he cries, when he just is. No matter what Hiro does, it sets Tadashi’s skin crawling and buzzing, and it makes him feel more alive than he ever has. The spiders are here because Hiro is here. They belong to him, just as Hiro belongs to Tadashi. It’s a circle, he realizes. The only complete thing he has in his life. The most concrete proof that Hiro is Tadashi’s no matter what.

He looks down at the bandages and stays silent, running his fingers up and down the length of his arm. His aunt must take his silence as some sort of agreement because she sighs and wraps her arms around him. He tenses, but says nothing.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she whispers, turning and kissing the side of his head. “We’ll get through this, I promise. Let’s go back to bed.”

So she walks him back to his room, the one he’ll share with Hiro from now on, and watches as he crawls back into bed and curls around his brother. He waits until the door is closed and he can’t hear his aunt’s footsteps anymore before curling closer, fitting his arms tighter around Hiro. Hiro sighs a little in his sleep and Tadashi, a little lightheaded from his understanding, presses a kiss just under his eye. He can still feel the squirming under his bandages and smiles, closing his eyes. He falls asleep like that, curled around the object that caused spiders to grow under his skin and knowing it was the right thing.

He wakes up when he feels his body being shaken. Opening his eyes, he sees Hiro crouched above him, looking panicked.

“Hiro?” he asks blearily, and Hiro’s face smooth’s out just a little.

“Your _arms,_ ” the toddler whispers, sounding upset. Tadashi glances back down, only now remembering the bandages. They ache, but he can no longer feel the squirming. He feels a little grief over that.

“I hurt them last night, but I’m okay now.” Hiro’s frown grows deeper, and he hugs Tadashi’s left arm close to him.

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter,” is all he says, smiling. He’s about to pull the boy forward for a hug, maybe for a longer cuddle if he’s feeling up to it, but he stops in surprise at Hiro’s next action. Hiro tugs the arm up and kisses the bandages a few times, before turning and resting his cheek against the arm.

“Does it feel better now?”

Tadashi doesn’t answer for a long moment. He can feel the squirming once more, more agitated than last night. More excited. He watches in a daze as one small spider manages to squirm its way out from under the bandages. It skitters across his arm for a moment before crawling towards Hiro. It reaches the boy’s face and climbs up his chin, across the bridge of his nose, before crawling back down and off his face.

“’dashi?”

Tadashi lets out a shaky breath before smiling.

“Yes, it feels much better now.”

-

Hiro starts Kindergarten at four instead of five, and over the course of the year Tadashi hears his aunt talk with Hiro’s teacher and principal about moving him into second or third grade at the end of the year. He’s flying through all the assignments, he’s proving that he knows so much more than his classmates. They’ve given him multiple tests that he’s passed with flying colours. He’s ready, everyone figures, to move ahead a little faster than the others.

“Oh Tadashi, isn’t it exciting?” Aunt Cass asked over dinner one night, reaching out and pinching one of Hiro’s cheeks. Hiro grumped and shook his head free, sticking out his tongue. Tadashi smiled at that and ruffled Hiro’s hair. He smiled more when all he got is a half-hearted dirty look and a smile. “Our little genius,” she cooed, laughing.

_My little genius,_ he corrected silently, the smile slipping from his face as he stared at his aunt. Her smile faltered a little before she turned away. She’s been seeing what his parents had seen in him, he thought. The yawning emptiness, the buzzing, moving shadows in his eyes. She hasn’t started to try and separate him from Hiro like they had though.

He doesn’t think she has the nerve for it, which suits him just fine.

He had laid down with Hiro that night, something Hiro has started to complain about just a little, and thought of peeling the skin that had touched his brother off his aunt’s fingers. Hiro breathed deeply next to him, and Tadashi had stared into the moonlit room, and then he had felt the bottom of his feet start to tickle. He had reached down and brushed his fingers along the arch of his foot. His fingers bumped into something spongey, and probing around, he found that there was an open sore. Something small was wiggling inside it, only slightly poking out. He had gripped it and pulled it out slowly, and holding it up in the light of the moon had revealed it to be an earthworm.

He’d stared at it for a minute, contemplating, before sucking it into his mouth and crushing it between his teeth.

Now he’s walking home from school, Hiro’s hand wrapped up in his, and laughing as his brother waddles after him. It’s February, still cold and snowy, and he’s been bundling Hiro up tight and warm in the mornings ever since he had gotten sick last month. Hiro doesn’t like it much, always complains that it makes it hard for him to move. He doesn’t fight it though, just lets Tadashi wrap him up in layers while he pouts. Hiro’s talking about the compliments his teacher had given him today, and Tadashi ponders his brother’s intellect.

He’s heard it mentioned, sometimes when he isn’t in the room and sometimes to his face, that he might actually be envious of his little brother. That he won’t comment on Hiro’s obvious genius because it makes him feel jealous, that he doesn’t feel like a boy seven years younger than him should be capable of being so smart. He’s heard ‘inferiority complex’ and ‘he’ll come to be okay with it in time’ so often, and every time it makes his teeth grit.

The thing is, the thing that no one bothers to think about, is that it doesn’t bother him how smart Hiro is.

It bothers him that people are taking note of it now.

Tadashi has _always_ known how smart Hiro was. It’s always been obvious, and it was only confirmed for him when Hiro said his first word so early. Tadashi has _always_ known, and now these adults are coming in and making loud claims and such like they had just discovered it themselves. They throw around that their tests prove it, that it is so remarkable, but all Tadashi wants to do when he hears them talk is yank their tongues out of their mouths.

He doesn’t much care how they look at Hiro either. Pride and greed and their own envy over the boy. Tadashi can practically see them licking their lips at the idea of how much prestige Hiro could bring their school. He always grabbed up Hiro and walked out of the room with him when he saw those looks. Hiro wasn’t theirs to make them look better, and he hated that they even entertained the idea.

“’dashi!” Hiro whines, yanking on his hand. Tadashi hums and glances down at the toddler, smiling at the pout on his little red face. “Are you listening?”

“Mm? Oh, no, sorry little bug. I guess I was distracted.” Hiro giggles, still delighted by the nickname Tadashi had given him a few months prior. Tadashi looks fondly down at him, thinking of worms and spiders and how soft Hiro was. “What were you saying?”

“I _said_ that Mrs. Lubitt wants us to make valentines! Since Valentine’s Day is comin’ up.”

“Oh?” Tadashi can feel his cheek start to twitch spasmodically.

“Uh-huh! And, and we’re only supposed to make one and give it to someone _anonymously._ ” Hiro preens a little at using that word, always feeling accomplished when he can learn and pronounce larger words. Tadashi feels like his smile has frozen to his face, an ugly break, and he clenches the hand not holding Hiro’s tightly.

“Is that so. And who are you giving yours to?” Hiro falters a little at this, looking unsure and a little frustrated.

“I dunno yet. There’s lotsa nice kids… how do I pick just one?”

“Well,” he starts, bending down and swinging Hiro up and into his arms, propping him on his hip. Hiro shrieks with laughter, always loves it when Tadashi picks him up, and wraps his little arms around his neck. “You wanna know a secret?” Hiro’s eyes light up and he nods his head excitedly. “On Valentine’s Day, people usually celebrate with the ones they love the very most. That’s who they give the cards to.”

“To people they love?”

“To the one person they love the very most,” Tadashi corrects, nuzzling his nose into Hiro’s hair. “Is that any of your classmates?” Hiro thinks about it, resting his cheek on Tadashi’s shoulder.

“Well… no. I don’t love any of them the most.”

“No?” he asks, feeling pleased. “Well then, who do you love the most?” Hiro lifts his head back up, grinning brightly.

“I love ‘dashi the most!” Tadashi hums, kissing the tip of Hiro’s nose as a reward for the answer.

“And I love you the most, Hiro.”

_I only love you,_ he doesn’t say.

“So we make each other valentines?”

“Yes,” Tadashi nods, squeezing Hiro briefly. “And no one else gets one from us, because we love each other more than anyone else. Right?”

“Right!”

“We gotta keep it a secret though, okay?” Hiro blinks at this, pulling back a little.

“Why?”

Because Aunt Cass doesn’t have the nerve to separate them, but he thinks she has to nerve to talk Hiro into separating himself. Because he doesn’t want Hiro’s classmates to try and say anything. Because Hiro’s teacher gives him an odd look, sometimes, when she sees him outside the classroom door every day. Because he hears the adults around the house and shop asking why he doesn’t talk to anyone but Hiro. Because Hiro is his, and he doesn’t want to share any part of his affection, not even the knowledge of it.

“Because valentines are _special_ ,” he replies, voice light and teasing. “They’re just between the two people that love each other, and they become less special if more people know about it. You want it to be special, right?” Hiro nods his head, smiling. “Right. So we keep it a secret.” He grins, dipping and dangling Hiro upside down. “You _can_ keep a secret, right?”

“Yes!” Hiro yelps. “I can keep a secret!” Tadashi rights him, laughing when Hiro smacks his shoulder. “Don’t do that again!”

Tadashi just kisses his cheek instead of replying.

He gives Hiro a small card the night before Valentine’s Day, delighting in the way Hiro’s face lights up. They sleep in the same bed again that night, and Tadashi has one arm wrapped around his brother while his heart buzzes uncontrollably in his chest. He can feel it lurching and vibrating, and when he closes his eyes all he can see are wasps hitting the back of his eyelids.

Hiro gives Tadashi his card in the morning, before they’re supposed to go down for breakfast. It’s a construction paper heart covered in glitter and glue, and Tadashi doesn’t think he’s felt this happy in his life. His little brother, his precious everything, his, his, _his,_ has given his one valentine to Tadashi, is looking at Tadashi like his approval is the only thing he could ever want.

“Thank you, Hiro,” he says, hugging the boy, and he can see small something’s slithering inside his wrists. “I love it.”

He goes to the bathroom later to brush his teeth, but becomes distracted by something that flashes white under his tongue. He lifts it and stares at the eggs resting there, wet and almost translucent. There’s a squirming close to the back, and he watches as a maggot forces its way above the eggs, crawling on top of them, coming closer to his teeth.

He spends the next five minutes pulling out the eggs one by one and crushing them between his fingers, and when he’s done he sucks his fingers clean.

-

“Hello Tadashi, I’m Ron Annan. How are you today?”

Tadashi doesn’t answer.

“Not good?”

Tadashi blows out a breath harshly, eyes glued to the floor by the older man’s feet.

“Well, how about you tell me why you’re here?”

Tadashi feels his upper lip curl in frustration.

He doesn’t want to be here, wants to be anywhere else. He wants to be with Hiro, who is at the house and most likely doing homework while their aunt watches. The frustration rises into something closer to hate at the thought of his aunt, who is most likely cooking in the kitchen and watching his brother from the corner of her eye. Thinking of Hiro being watched while he isn’t there makes his gut clench. Thinking of his aunt, who had forced him to come here, makes his fingers curl into claws.

He had told her, quite calmly he had thought, that what happened had not been his fault. That he had merely been acting in self-defense for Hiro’s sake, who was still small and sweet and fragile. He’d told her through clenched teeth, his eyes glued on his brother sitting with his head bowed over the kitchen table, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

She hadn’t agreed.

“You do realize,” she had said, her eyes filled with tears that she seemed to be struggling to fight back, “that this is the most you’ve spoken to me in two months, don’t you?” He’d stared at her blankly. “Your teachers say you won’t talk _at all_ , and that on top of what’s happened… Do you have any idea how lucky you are those parents didn’t press charges?”

Hiro had started to cry, then, and Tadashi had abandoned his conversation to go comfort his brother. Aunt Cass had thrown her hands into the air, and when she spoke again, “Like it or not, you are going and that’s final,” it was obvious that she had finally started to cry herself. Tadashi had felt a sick sort of pleasure at the knowledge.

Which is how he finds himself sitting on a couch opposite a short, balding man with a notepad in his lap.

A psychiatrist, the website had said.

_Doctor,_ Tadashi had thought unhappily, while he had considered biting his aunt’s fingers off when she made the call.

“Your aunt tells me,” the man says after a minute of silence, regarding whatever is written in his notes, “that you hardly speak to anyone besides your brother, and that you’ve started to show signs of extreme aggression. She mentioned you got into a fight with some younger kids.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait the doctor has laid out. The man already knows he had gotten into a fight, obviously, and he doesn’t think he needs to explain himself to this stuffy, aging, weak man. His aunt hadn’t understood, and neither had the police when they had questioned him. Hiro, though unhappy and still frightened from those boys, had somewhat understood. Would completely understand when Tadashi gets home later and explains himself.

“You’re fifteen, is that right? And these boys were…?” Tadashi rolls his eyes and finally looks at the man across from him, waving his hand for him to continue. The doctor thins his lips. “They were eleven, weren’t they?” Tadashi shrugs, not caring very much. “That’s a little young for someone your age to pick fights with, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t pick a damn fight with them. They were picking on my brother, so I got them to stop.”

“You don’t think your brother can defend himself?”

“He’s _eight_ , what do you think?” The doctor’s brows raise significantly. “Besides, he’s my brother _._ If I have to set someone right, I will.” The man hums a little before glancing down and jotting down a couple sentences. Tadashi rolls his eyes again before slumping further in the seat. He’s said his part, as far as he’s concerned. This man could continue to blow air out of his ass for the rest of the hour for all he cares.

“According to your aunt, you broke one of their noses, broke another’s fingers, and caused significant bruising on their arms and sides. Doesn’t that seem a little extreme to you?” Tadashi holds eye contact with the man, slowly curling and uncurling his fingers. He had seen his brother pushed to the ground, had seen those boys laughing, and had decided that the boys needed to learn a lesson.

The problem was that Tadashi had already tried other means of keeping bullies away. Hiro gets picked on so often, being eight and already in middle school, and Tadashi has tried. He’s tried just running the boys off, he’s tried threats and messages. He’s told his aunt, he’s told other adults around. He has tried everything he could think of to avoid this, to avoid having to go back to doctors once more, but nothing has worked.

Seeing those boys laugh over his brother’s fallen body, he finally decided that he needed to set an example, even if it lead to doctors. If he had enjoyed pouncing on them, what did it matter? If he had enjoyed the way the skin thinned over his knuckles as he had punched the boys, if he had enjoyed the sound of the one’s nose breaking, if he had enjoyed the wet cries of the other as he stepped on his fingers,  if he had enjoyed kicking them until they couldn’t cry, did it matter?

If he had enjoyed it, so what?

He would have kept going if Hiro hadn’t started to scream. Tadashi had whirled around to face him, and the sight of his brother’s face scrunched up as he screamed brought forth a gripping sort of anger he very rarely felt. He had thought of grabbing Hiro’s shoulders and shaking him until his teeth fell out, had thought of touching the empty holes in his mouth while Hiro choked on loosened teeth. The feeling passed quickly, though, and instead he had picked Hiro up and walked them both home.

Aunt Cass had been furious when she had found out, had tried to grab Hiro away from him so Tadashi could spend time alone ‘to be punished.’ He had pulled the boy closer to his chest and practically hissed at her. She had backed up, visibly frightened, a look that got more and more familiar on her face as time went by. She’d left, and he’d thought it had been the end of it.

Not so much, though, as it turns out, and he watches as the man writes more things down.

“Tell me a little about Hiro.”

Tadashi bares his teeth and almost growls, wants to lunge forward and tear at the man’s eyes for speaking his name. This man, this _doctor_ , has absolutely no right to let that name pass his teeth. Not when he has never seen Hiro, not when he doesn’t care about Hiro one way or another. Not when Hiro belongs to Tadashi, and Hiro is the one thing Tadashi will never share.

Still, he finds himself considering it.

He considers opening his mouth and speaking of Hiro. How smart Hiro is, and how sweet and loyal. How he wakes Tadashi up in the morning by jumping on top of him, wrapping himself in all his blankets and running off with them. That Hiro will sometimes still hold Tadashi’s hand when he walks him to school, and how he babbles about all his latest projects and what they’re working on in class that week. How Hiro will sneak cookies from the café and share them with Tadashi in their room, giggling over his accomplishment.

He could tell this man how well Hiro’s small hand fits in his own, how the boy’s smiles sets something fluttering in his gut. He could mention how proud he is when Hiro comes to Tadashi first for approval of any project he thinks up. How Hiro tells Tadashi of all his thoughts, and dreams, and any misgivings he may have. How Hiro trusts Tadashi to soothe every hurt, to comfort him whenever he needs it.

He could bring up the conversation they had had, the night Aunt Cass had told Tadashi he was going to see a doctor. How Hiro had turned to him in their room, eyes wide, and had asked, “How come you don’t talk to anyone but me?” Tadashi had blinked, and he could tell this weak man how he had been surprised to hear the question. He could mention how he had cupped his brother’s face, had stared at him briefly before hugging him and whispering, “Because you’re the only one that matters to me.” Hiro had shuddered at those words, but he had still hugged Tadashi back, and he would mention that as well.

He could tell this man, and he smiles at the thought of what the look on his face would be, how he and Hiro mostly sleep in separate beds now. How he waits until Hiro is sound asleep before crawling out of his bed and going to his brothers. How he climbs on top of the covers and hovers over the boy. How he watches Hiro breathe for hours, and how he can feel the bugs living inside him dance and shake at how vulnerable Hiro looks.

He could tell this man about the frequent dream he has where Hiro is sitting cross-legged in front of him. How Hiro reaches out in his dream and pulls Tadashi’s teeth out, one by one. His teeth are black and rotted in Hiro’s palm, and they pop loose with a sucking sound. Once all his teeth are out, Hiro pushes them slowly into Tadashi’s neck like a macabre necklace. He’d tell the man how he can see reflections of himself in Hiro’s eyes, and how he can see worms crawling out of his gums. He could tell the man how he wakes up from these dreams excited and more in love with Hiro every time.

He could tell the doctor, with his small eyes and lips that are slowly turning down into a frown, how he had briefly considered killing his brother when he was an infant before he had decided to claim him.

He watches the man frown, though, and thinks of more doctor’s visits, thinks of Hiro alone with someone that isn’t him, and forces a tired smile to his face.

“Hiro’s perfect,” he says, before sighing. “I’m sorry, I know you’re right. It wasn’t right of me to attack those boys like I did. I should have gotten help, or at least not resorted to violence.” The doctor’s mouth smooth’s out, and he jots a couple words down. “I feel really bad about those boys. I’m so much older, and they couldn’t defend themselves against me. It’s just… Hiro’s so smart, and he gets picked on so much. I guess I’m just more protective of him ever since our parents died.” He forces a couple tears to his eyes, and it turns out to be the right thing to have said and done. The man’s face instantly turns into one of sympathy and understanding.

“I’m very sorry, I know how hard losing your parents can be.”

“Thank you,” he says softly, looking down at hands that he’s twisted together, fighting back a triumphant smile.

They spend the rest of the hour talking, Tadashi making up feelings over an event he doesn’t care about and tamping down the feelings he has for the one thing he loves. He answers all the questions as he should, and at the end, when he and the doctor go out and see his aunt waiting for him with Hiro next to her, the doctor smiles warmly. Tadashi walks over and sits next to his brother, pulling him into his lap, as his aunt stands and walks over to the man. He hears things like ‘rebellious phase’ and ‘repressed grief over parents’ but doesn’t pay much attention. He buries his face into Hiro’s hair and tries not to laugh when he hears, “It will pass, he just needs some time, but if anything like this happens again please feel free to call.”

“Are you sure? Really?” He can hear the disbelief in his aunt’s voice, and he glances up and finds her staring, wringing her hands together. She doesn’t look placated in the least, but the doctor waves his hand and laughs a little.

“Yes, I think he’s just fine. Just a teenager, you know how they can be.”

“It’s just, he’s been to doctor’s before, since he won’t talk—“

“He’s quiet, that’s true, but he talked just fine with me for the hour that we had.” He tunes them out once more, feeling smug over the hopeless look his aunt has on her face. He thinks she tries to talk the doctor onto her side for another minute or so, but to no avail. No follow up appointments are made, and they leave the building together just a few short minutes later. Hiro’s holding his hand, silent, and Tadashi feels a wave of satisfaction. He sits in the middle when they get to the truck, as he always does, keeping Hiro tucked close to the door. Aunt Cass sits behind the wheel for a minute, staring out the windshield silently before turning to him.

“We’ll find a new psychiatrist,” she says, but she sounds a little numb. Like she can’t believe this is happening. “We’ll find a new one, and they’ll help—“ She cuts herself off, swallowing heavily. He watches her throat bob and smiles at her. “They’ll help you. We’ll find someone to help with whatever’s wrong.”

“Didn’t you hear the doctor?” he asks, voice sickly sweet. His aunt’s eyes widen and she worries her lower lip between her teeth. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” He turns away, back to Hiro, when he hears a small, hurt noise escape her throat.

Aunt Cass grips the steering wheel tight in her hands as she drives them home, mumbling soothing words to herself. Hiro stares out the window, and from what Tadashi can see from his reflection he looks somber and a little troubled. He’ll have to ask about that when they don’t have prying ears with them. He stares at Hiro for a few minutes, would be content to look the entire drive back, but an itching under the skin on his face tears his eyes away.

He looks in the rearview mirror and all his attention is suddenly focused on the small bump moving inside his cheek. It moves restlessly in circles before stopping for a second, then climbing upward. He feels it crawl over his cheekbone to the edge of his eye socket, feels and sees his eyelid form around the bump. He slowly reaches up and tugs down on his eyelid, and out from underneath it pops a spider. It stays there on the edge of his lid before beginning to crawl again, over his eye then to his eyelashes, where it rests.

“Tadashi?” He looks over to Hiro, who is looking back at him in confusion.

“It’s nothing,” Tadashi replies, swiping his fingers over his eyelashes. “Had something in my eye.” He brings his hands to his lap and discreetly crushes the small spider between his fingers.

The rest of the day is filled with tense silence. He’s a little bothered that it’s coming from Hiro, of all people, who normally can’t keep his mouth shut. Hiro, who is normally filled with boundless energy, is lethargic that night, keeping silent and watching Tadashi carefully. He plans on confronting Hiro that night at bed time, but is saved when he comes to his side of the room on his own.

“Aunt Cass said you were seeing a special doctor,” Hiro says, cutting right to the chase.

“Aunt Cass made me go, but yes,” he replies just as bluntly. “He was a special kind of doctor.”

“Is something wrong with you?” Tadashi jumps at the question before he sets his jaw, feeling another wave of anger.

“What has that woman told you?” he snaps, narrowing his eyes. Hiro’s chin trembles, just a little, before he shakes his head. “Hiro, tell me right now.” Hiro shakes his head again, his hands clenching and unclenching nervously. “ _Hiro._ ” Tadashi sees his brother’s shoulders tense and feels glad. Hiro hates that tone of voice, knows when he hears it that Tadashi is mad at him. Tadashi is hardly ever mad at Hiro, normally worships the ground he walks on, but the times he is…

Sometimes, like now, Tadashi will use that tone even if he isn’t mad to get information out of Hiro.

“She… she said it was wrong. What you did to those boys picking on me.”

“Did she now.”

“Uh-huh. And… and you really hurt them! They just pushed me, honest, and… and there was all that blood…” Tadashi stares at Hiro, keeping his face impassive, watching as his brother starts to squirm. He pats the spot next to him, smiling a stiff smile.

“Come here, little bug. Let me explain.” Hiro walks over, his eyes on the floor, and Tadashi can see the way his fingers shake. He tsk’s at the sight, grabbing Hiro as soon as he’s close enough and sitting him down so close their sides touch. “Let me ask you a few questions. Have I ever hurt you?”

“No…”

“Have I ever put you in a position where you’ll be hurt?”

“No…”

“Do you think I hate you?”

“No!”

“Then why would this be any different?” Hiro doesn’t look convinced, only glancing at Tadashi from the corner of his eyes. “You know what I’ve always told you?”

“That people are bad.”

“And?”

“And… people don’t like that I’m so smart. Everybody thinks it’s weird, right?”

“That’s right. All your classmates don’t think you should be there, and that’s why they pick on you. The teachers don’t care that it happens, otherwise they would have done something by now, right?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s true.” He grips Hiro’s shoulder tightly, shaking him just a little. “No one understands you, and they never will. Not like I do. And all those kids, they’re gonna keep picking on you. I just wanted to try and get it to stop in the future. Hiro, I didn’t do a bad thing, I did the _right_ thing. I did what was best for you.”

“But… but they got hurt because of me…”

“And hopefully, no one else will have to get hurt.”

“It’s my fault?”

“I’m sorry, little bug. People just don’t understand. Hopefully they’ll stay away, and nothing like this will happen again.”

“What if I make friends though? Can’t they stay?” Tadashi purses his lips before taking a slow, careful breath.

“Hiro, it’s like I said. No one will ever understand you. If someone tries to be your friend, do you really think they’ll be doing it because they like you?” Hiro looks up at him, his eyes very wide, tears building up in the corners of them. Tadashi feels a little bad, maybe, for making Hiro cry, but he has to understand. He has to understand that no one will ever love him like Tadashi does. “They won’t. They’ll just want something from you, or they’ll just play a cruel trick on you. People are going to hurt you if you let them, little bug. I just want to protect you from that.”

Hiro starts to really cry at that, his little body shaking from the force of his sobs. Tadashi brings him into his lap, rubbing his back and humming. Hiro starts to cry harder, but he still cuddles close to Tadashi, so he counts it as a win. He brings a thumb up to Hiro’s cheek, swiping away some of the tears still falling. Hugging Hiro closer, he brings his hand up and sucks his thumb into his mouth, tasting his precious brother on his tongue.

-

“Hey Tadashi!”

The greeting is drawn out, coated in a thick, syrupy sweetness. Tadashi immediately tenses, keeping his eyes trained on his desk. He doesn’t flinch when a heavy hand comes slamming down on his shoulder, looking friendly and feeling hostile, but the growl almost slips past his clenched teeth.

No one at school really bothers him, including the teachers. They’re all unnerved by his presence, his unending silence. They’re all frightened of him, the way he makes eye contact and won’t blink, how sometimes he picks the skin of his arm bloody to get the ants to stop crawling. No one sees the bugs crawling over his body or belongings, they only see the blood caked under his fingernails, his smile that never touches his eyes. They would put him in special classes, he knows, if he weren’t already so ahead of his peers. They simply stay as far away from him as they can get.

Except for these two, a fact which never fails to piss him off.

He glances at the hand on his shoulder, following the arm up and up until he reaches the grinning, olive-skinned face of the boy who, for some reason, refuses to leave him alone. Standing at his shoulder is his friend, or whatever they are to each other, a slump-shouldered boy with thick, down-turned lips and a shock of untamed red hair. He doesn’t know their names, has never bothered to learn any of the names of those around him, but he’s seen them around school for the past couple years. They’d always shied away from him as well, nervous sneers on their faces. He wishes they had never gotten the nerve to approach him.

“What, you’re not gonna say hi back? After all this time we’ve known each other!”

“Maybe he’s _shy_ ,” the thick-lipped boy says slowly, eyes gleaming.

Tadashi says nothing, thinks of how easy it would be to bite through each knuckle of the boys hand that is still touching him, how satisfying it would be to spit them back in that grinning face.

“Maybe he is,” the smiling boy agrees. “And here I am, just trying to _help_. See,” and he grips Tadashi’s shoulder tightly, pushing on it to try and get Tadashi to turn. This time, he lets the growl slip out, keeps it low, and the fingers spasm slightly before loosening. He feels a hot curl of satisfaction run through him at that; they may be trying to bully reactions out of him, but he still frightens them it seems.

“See her over there? She’s got a crush on you! Isn’t that just the _cutest?_ ” The boy’s smile is starting to turn into a sneer, and Tadashi glances over to where he’s pointing. There’s a girl turned towards them, practically posing in her chair, and she smiles as she begins to raise her hand in greeting. There’s a mocking tilt to her lips, her shoulders maybe just a little too tense to be casual. She’s raising her hand but whatever she sees on his face dries up her mocking grin and she darts her hand close to her body. She turns away quickly and Tadashi looks back to the boy that hasn’t let go of him yet.

“Not your type?” the thick-lipped boy asks, somehow managing a grin.

“Well that can’t be,” the smiling boy muses, looking speculatively down at Tadashi. “Pretty girl like that is everyone’s type! Unless…” Here his grin widens, and somehow, _somehow_ he leans closer. Tadashi idly wonders if this boy was born without a survival instinct. “You _are_ into girls, aren’t you Tadashi?”

Tadashi sneers at him in response. It’s a stupid question, asked by a stupid boy that doesn’t know that he _should not be touching him_. He doesn’t like girls. He doesn’t like girls, or boys, or anyone. Everyone around him is filled with blood and meat and rot, so insignificant they aren’t even worth spitting at. They’re rotting without any maggots or ants to hold them together, nothing inside feasting and making pure.

No, Tadashi isn’t into anyone at all.

“I think he’s only into his brother,” the thick-lipped boy replies for him, snickering like he just told a clever joke, and something about the way he says that makes Tadashi whip his head towards him and curl his lips back from his teeth. The boy flounders a bit, stepping backwards before catching himself. He casts a nervous glance over at his friend, but he just goes right on smiling.

“Now don’t be silly,” he says, reaching behind him. “I’m sure Tadashi here likes girls, isn’t that right? He just needs a little… push.”

And with that, he reaches behind him and brings out a magazine, plopping it onto Tadashi’s desk.

Tadashi looks down at the cover, at the barely dressed woman that looks like she’s trying very hard to smile instead of cry. She’s wearing a sheer white number, barely more than scraps of cloth that leaves nothing to the imagination. It seems almost to discourage imagination. It hangs off of her shoulders, splitting between the breasts to keep her stomach bare. Her hair is mussed and she has her chest and hips thrust out in a mockery of want. The longer he stares, the more her face twists from a smile to a scream.

“This is what you’re missing out on, Tadashi!” The hand on his shoulder jostles him a little, and he snaps his gaze back up to the boy’s face. “You’ll never get a taste of _that_ if you keep acting like a freak.”

There’s a fierce buzzing in Tadashi’s skull, what sounds like bees squirming and tearing through the meat of his brain. Pulling his own lips into a shadow of a grin, he keeps his eyes locked on the boy’s and his fingers travel up and up and find loose skin on his lip. He grips the skin and pulls as hard as he can. There’s resistance, then the skins give with a dull throb of pain, and he knows that blood is forming there, can feel it grow fat and heavy before it trickles down.

“Oh, _dude!_ ” the thick-lipped boy exclaims, backing away.

“Marco!”

The hand on his shoulder finally, _finally_ moves away, and the smile finally drops from the boy’s face as he looks up at their teacher. The man is trying very hard to look stern, but his eyes keep flicking to Tadashi’s bloody grin and his throat bobs helplessly.

“Sorry, sir,” the boy replies, eyes traveling between their teacher and what must be a very interesting look on Tadashi’s face. “We were just concerned, we saw Tadashi looking at this magazine during class and—“

“I highly doubt that belongs to Tadashi.” The man’s gaze finally, reluctantly it seems, come to rest on Tadashi himself. His nostrils flare before his eyes flick just the tiniest bit down. “Go clean yourself up.”

Tadashi smiles more at the tremble in his voice.

He’s in the bathroom a few minutes later, sitting in a stall and wiping the blood off his lip with his tongue. He thinks about boys, about slipping his fingers into their smiling mouth to tug out their teeth, one by one. He thinks of fingers and the tiny bones left to scatter. He thinks of screaming women, painted glossy, with throats easy to cut, sheer white stained red.

He thinks of the gap between his brother’s teeth, how he dreams of Hiro smiling while his gums bleed.

_I think he’s only into his brother._

He thinks very long on that.

He’s still thinking of it late that night, sitting on the edge of Hiro’s bed. His brother has twisted and turned so much that his covers are half off, and Tadashi eyes the thin chest rising and falling rhythmically as Hiro breathes quietly. He’s not as small as he used to be, but his cheeks are still sweetly round and his fingers still open and close, like he wants to grab onto something. He thinks he can live with Hiro growing a few extra inches.

Tadashi reaches out and touches the center of Hiro’s chest, where the model’s lingerie had split apart, and focuses on his heartbeat. He thinks of Hiro, chest and hips thrust out in a parody of want, and it’s a little silly. A little silly, but something in Tadashi’s gut clenches nonetheless. It’s not _want_ , or it’s not a want that he’s ever experienced. It’s more a knowing than it is a want.

The boys had been mocking him about sex, he knows that. They’d been trying to make him uncomfortable, to make him lash out in some way. They’d wanted a reaction from him, just not the one he had given. They’d been using sex as a weapon, which isn’t all that surprising to him. Most people, from what he can see, use sex as a weapon whether they realize it or not. They weaponize their bodies and call it ‘love’ and he would be more impressed if he weren’t so disgusted. Tadashi has never loved anyone before and so put all thoughts along those lines out of his mind.

Except those boys had knocked ideas loose earlier and he feels his skin crawl and twitch as he considers them.

Hiro snuffles in his sleep, head burrowing down into his pillow, and Tadashi presses a little more firmly on his chest. He considers his brother, who still doesn’t know that Tadashi watches him sleep. He considers the ten years that he’s had Hiro as his own, and he considers how he’s become a breeding ground for every dirty bug the world has to offer. He considers Hiro’s smile, and his intelligence, and the soft flesh of his belly when Tadashi tickles him.

Tadashi considers all this, and he feels his chest crush inwards, his heart flutter and lurch. Fingers curl tight in Hiro’s shirt and he wishes it weren’t there, wishes he could grip skin and pull and _pull_ until there was blood. Wishes he could pull apart flesh and bone to get to the soft, warm parts of his brother. Until he could hold Hiro’s small heart in his hands, where he could hold it and keep it safe from others, and he could put it in a little glass jar and watch the sun shine on it every day.

Tadashi wants to keep Hiro _forever_ , and isn’t that what love is supposed to be? Taking and keeping and possessing?

He isn’t sure what else the hot feeling in his brain could be.

Love, he thinks as he leans down and rests his head on Hiro’s stomach, feels like a fever. It feels like his eyeballs expanding to burst, it feels like his skeleton trying to shake itself out of his body. His eyes close and all he can see is the screaming woman, white outfit being stained by blood seeping out of her pores. Her mouth open wide, tongue lolling past her lips and he wants to turn, wants to sink his teeth into Hiro’s belly, to tell him to never ever _ever_ …

_Breathe,_ he thinks wildly, but all that does is fill his nose with the scent of his sleeping brother.

He must love Hiro, he decides. This must be love because he isn’t sure what else could make him _feel_ like this. The way he’s always felt, ever since Hiro was an infant that slept like he was having bad dreams. He wants to claw Hiro open, wants to suck the flesh from his fingers. He wants to immerse himself in his brother’s very being. He wants to slice open his own wrists and let the spiders and ants and worms climb into Hiro’s body, where they can rest and feed and make Hiro finally, finally whole.

Love is a fever, and sex is supposed to be love, and Tadashi feels like he could unhinge his jaw and swallow Hiro whole.

But Hiro is young, much too young to have reached this epiphany. No matter how smart his little brother is, he feels there’s still time to be had before Hiro is ready. If he tries anything now, he will scare Hiro, he’s sure of it. Hiro won’t understand, and what if he goes to his teachers or their aunt for clarification?

No, no that won’t do at all.

Tadashi closes his eyes and breathes until he feels the shaking subside. It’s very early morning by the time he stands and goes to his own bed, and by this time he’s much calmer. Tadashi is patient, and with his emotions under control once more, he is also rational once again. There is still no interest in sex, he finds. All the interest is in having and keeping Hiro in every way possible.

He loves Hiro, and when Hiro is ready one day, he will come to his older brother.

The dreams are different that night, when he finally coaxes his body into sleep. He dreams Hiro crawls into his bed, wearing the lingerie the model on the magazine had been wearing. It hangs much looser on him, his body too small and boyish to fill it out, but his eyes are open and loving. He dreams Hiro crawls into his bed and sits on his stomach, hands coming to rest on his own breastbone.

“’dashi,” Hiro says quietly, and small fingers dig into flesh and Hiro tears his chest open. Tadashi dreams that Hiro tears his body apart, and he dreams he sobs because Hiro has his own bugs, has maggots crawling between the spaces of his ribs. He sees Hiro’s cheeks heat with blood, sees his heart beat wildly out in the open, and oh it is beautiful. Hiro’s heart is shrouded with spider webs, white and red and glistening. Hiro licks his lips nervously, looking like he’s struggling for words.

“’dashi,” is all he says again, and maybe he just can’t say anything else, and that’s fine. It’s fine, Tadashi thinks as he leans up and licks Hiro’s ribs, catching the squirming maggots on his tongue. If the last word to leave Hiro’s mouth was Tadashi’s name, he thinks that would be just fine.

He wakes up face down, gasping and throbbing in ways he’s never felt before. One hitch of his hips against the mattress finds him relief, and he lays there for long minutes, breathing and wondering how much things will have to change because of this.

There’s no semen in his underwear when he goes to change later.

There are only tiny, hard-shelled bugs, crawling over the fabric and the skin of his groin.

-

Change is not something Tadashi welcomes readily.

Change is the years flying by, watching Hiro grow thin and ungainly as his body adjusts. Change is Hiro’s twelfth birthday and Tadashi realizing, as he watches Hiro blow out the candles on his cake, that his brother is slowly losing his baby fat. Change is Hiro almost finished with high school already and watching him contemplate colleges, like Tadashi had never bothered to do, and realizing that Hiro could try and go somewhere far away. Change is Hiro working on one specific robot and, for the first time in his life, not sharing what the purpose is with him. Change is watching Hiro come home from school every day and lock himself away, avoid Tadashi and not their aunt.

Change is watching the light is Hiro’s eyes grow more and more distrustful when he looks at Tadashi as the days pass.

No, Tadashi does not welcome change.

In fact, it turns out that he really fucking hates it.

He bides his time, gritting his teeth every time Hiro chooses to run off to the garage whenever Tadashi tries to speak with him. He waits until Friday night, which is when their aunt goes out with her friends. Tadashi watches silently as she heads toward the door. She flicks her eyes up at him, sitting on the stairs and staring at her, and opens her mouth briefly before shutting it. Shaking her head, she silently heads out the door and away for the night. He gives it a couple minutes, just to be absolutely sure that she’s gone, before he stands and marches to the garage.

He’s waited and waited but he realizes, halfway to his destination, that he doesn’t actually have a plan. There’s been too much fire in his blood, too much anger and betrayal clawing at his insides. The insects crawling inside him have been much more active, and he’s watched, silent and seething, as they crawl out his nose and ears. He’s chewed his fingers raw and bleeding and pulled out webs of spider silk from his veins, and yes. Yes, he’s been too angry to form a plan. That’s okay though, he figures as he tears open the garage door and faces his startled brother.

He’s always been much better working things out as he goes.

“Hiro,” he growls out, and dimly he’s surprised at how well he’s able to mask how angry he is. “Come inside.” Hiro’s reaction is immediate. His jaw juts out, lips forming a childish pout. He crosses his arms and shakes his head; Tadashi grits his teeth harder at the sight. Had it really been only a few months ago when Hiro would obey him without question? Just a few months ago when, if Tadashi had said ‘jump’ Hiro would have only asked ‘how high?’ Had it? “ _Now_ ,” he commands instead of pondering that further.

“I don’t want to,” Hiro drawls out, and does he sound haughty? Tadashi’s afraid he might. “I’m busy working on my robot. Whatever you want will just have to wait.”

“I’m sorry, _little bug_.” Hiro falters a little at the old nickname, but instead of giving in he just squares his shoulders even more. “I’m not giving you a choice.” Darting forward, he grabs Hiro’s wrist and grips it as tight as he can. Hiro yelps, startled by the pain and unable to stop Tadashi as he yanks him forward and begins dragging him out of the garage.

“I’ll scream!” Hiro threatens, voice strung high with anxiety. He twists and pulls his arms, digging his heels into the ground, unable to stop Tadashi’s forward momentum. “I’ll scream, and-and people will hear and come see what you’re doing!”

“Fine then,” Tadashi spits out, dragging him past the garage doors and to the side door that leads inside. “Go ahead and scream. You think any of these people around give a shit if you do? You think they care?” He throws a sneer over his shoulder, taking a dumb, sick delight in the angry fear on his brother’s face. “They don’t care. You’re just another person as far as they’re concerned. They’ll turn up their TV’s, put their headphones in, but they won’t come to help. They don’t fucking _care_ , so go ahead and scream!”

Hiro doesn’t scream.

He drags Hiro inside, through the living room, up the stairs past the kitchen, and up to the room they still share in the attic. Hiro continues to struggle, his nails digging furrows into Tadashi’s skin. He can feel the blood well up on his fingers and wrists, idly wonders what else is coming out, wishes that Hiro could see and feel the way he affects Tadashi. He wishes Hiro would just understand that he _can’t_ ignore Tadashi like he has been. He can’t ignore the person who loves him the most, who has given everything of himself for Hiro’s safety and comfort and happiness.

Tadashi wishes that Hiro could feel the fire that runs through him whenever he looks at Hiro, that Hiro could feel his skin crawling and _know…_

Well. No time like the present.

Gripping Hiro’s arm tighter, he wraps his free hand in the back of Hiro’s shirt and hurls the young boy onto his bed. Hiro bounces, tries to right himself, but Tadashi is on him in the next instant, teeth bared in some semblance of a smile.

“Now,” he starts, and he grabs both Hiro’s arms in one hand this time, pinning them above his head. He notices that he’s still bleeding sluggishly where Hiro had dug in his nails, notices that the blood is traveling down to Hiro’s skin. He notices it but can’t find it in himself to care. “You’re going to tell me exactly _why_ you’ve been avoiding me, and we’re going to _fix_ whatever fucking problem you have.”

“I don’t have a problem,” Hiro says vehemently, struggling and squirming and oh, if Tadashi didn’t feel like his eyes were about to melt from the heat of his fury, he’d find the sight beautiful. “I don’t have any problem! You’re the one with a problem! You and your… your staring and your anger, and tearing yourself up! You pick at your skin until you bleed, and you stare at it until it stops, then you stare at _me_! It’s creepy!”

“Watch your tongue,” he whispers, putting his free hand in the middle of Hiro’s chest and pushing. Hiro wheezes, trying to gasp after the air is pushed out of his lungs and unable to do so. Tadashi watches as his brother’s face grows redder and redder before easing up on the pressure.

“See?” Hiro coughs, shooting a poisonous look at him. Tadashi reels back a little, finally startled by the open hostility that he can’t seem to shake from Hiro. “See, that’s what I’m talking about! Brothers don’t treat each other like this! You’re supposed to look after me, not try and choke me!”

“I have been looking after you,” he says, trying to calm himself. “I’ve protected you from bullies, I’ve kept you _safe_ —“

“You have _not!_ ” Hiro is starting to shriek now, cheeks flushing an angry, blotchy red. “You’ve been _chasing people away_ , I could have _friends_ , I could have a _normal life_ if it weren’t for you!”

“No you couldn’t. You think anyone wants to be friends with you? You _really_ think that? They _don’t._ ” Hiro’s lips tremble but he hasn’t started crying yet. Tadashi feels an inexplicable swell of pride at that, but it’s swallowed by the anger he feels that Hiro is still trying to resist him. “Why would anyone want to be friends with you? So you can make them feel _inferior_?”

“You don’t know that,” Hiro insists. “You don’t know that because you won’t let me find out.”

“You don’t need anyone else, Hiro. Why do you want friends? Aren’t I good enough for you?”

“ _No._ ”

A few things happen inside him all at once. It’s like being punched in the gut, when he hears that word fall from Hiro’s lips. Like his heart grows and shrinks and constricts all at once. It makes him want to vomit, want to scream and scream until Hiro has no choice but to cave to him. He can feel something slither up his spine, up and up and up until he can feel it resting at the base of his skull and he shudders.

The most unforgiving thing that he feels is the heat.

He thought he’d been hot with anger before, but it is nothing compared to this. It starts down at his toes, rising up steadily, heating the blood in his veins, tightening his muscles. His fingers spasm and clutch even harder around Hiro’s arms, and the boy cries out sharply in pain, but he still can’t find it in himself to care. He can’t care because Hiro doesn’t think he’s enough, and if he isn’t enough, then neither is Hiro’s pain.

“How _dare_ you,” he hisses, wrapping his other hand around Hiro’s throat this time. He doesn’t apply pressure, not yet, but he’s very clear that it’s a threat. He watches Hiro’s eyes dilate, watches as he begins panting with panic, and feels a razor sharp joy cut through his chest. “After everything, after _everything_ we’ve been through, everything I’ve done… And you have the audacity to say that to me? To treat me like I’m nothing. I am _everything_ to you, I should be the only person that _matters_ , I’m your fucking brother!”

“You don’t treat me like your brother,” Hiro repeats, voice shaking with fear. “You treat me like a pet, like, like a toy! Like some _damn kept boy_!”

“Watch your language,” he snaps, not denying it. “You’re the most precious toy in the world. Why won’t you let me treat you like that anymore?”

“ _I’m not a toy!_ ” Hiro screams, and the struggle finally goes out of him. Tadashi feels momentarily triumphant before Hiro curls his legs close lightning fast, shooting out his foot and kicking Tadashi square in the groin. He lets go of Hiro and curls in on himself, groaning loudly, more shocked than in pain. Hiro finally slips away, scrambling off the bed and across the room, still panting in panic, eyes rolling madly. Breathing harshly through his nose, he slowly uncurls and climbs off the bed.

“You little brat,” he says, almost calmly, and he watches Hiro’s throat bob. “Who told you all of this? Who’s been filling your head with these lies?”

“None of your business.”

“Hiro,” he says, smiling now. Raising his hands palm up, he takes a couple steps towards his brother. He stops when Hiro scrambles away from him, but he keeps on smiling. He smiles like he can’t feel it. “Don’t you see, little bug? Don’t you see why I do this? I’m protecting you. You are so precious, I have to keep you from people that want to hurt you.”

“Like our aunt?” Hiro asks, sounding petulant. Tadashi’s smile twitches briefly.

“I was… a little shaken after our parents died,” he lies. “You were all I had left, and I wanted to keep you safe. I still do.”

“It’s not normal, Tadashi. Don’t _you_ see? It’s… this isn’t right, it’s never been right.”

“Says who?” he counters. “What, the other kids around you? Has it ever occurred to you that they’re lying? Trying to tear you away so they can get whatever they want from you? This is exactly what I was protecting you from! Please, come here, we can fix this…”

“Why are you doing this?” Hiro sobs, finally beginning to cry. Tadashi wants to draw him close, to wipe away the tears and lick them up like he’s done before. He wants, he _wants…_ He wants Hiro to be done with this silly fit, to come back to him. “Please, why…”

“Because no one loves you like I love you.”

“You don’t love me… You don’t, you, you wouldn’t treat me like this if you did…”

“I do. Hiro, I do love you. I love you more than anything, since you were a baby…” He begins to walk forward again, and Hiro seems too drained to try and run anymore. A little thrill of victory runs through him at that. When he’s close enough, he brushes the hair off of Hiro’s forehead. “Since you were a baby sleeping in your crib… I’ve always loved you the most. More than our parents, more than our aunt, more than anyone out there could ever love you. You deserve the best, and the best is me. You were made for me, you’re _mine_. You think I’ll ever let anyone take what’s mine away from me?”

The fight comes back to Hiro in a sudden burst, and he knocks Tadashi’s hand away with a frustrated sound.

“Stop talking about me like I’m an object! I’m my own person, why can’t you see that? I’m not yours, I’ve never been yours, and I’ll never be yours!”

Growling, Tadashi snaps forward the hand that Hiro knocked away and twists it into his brother’s hair. The boy yelps with pain, and the struggle begins once again as Tadashi drags him close by his hair.

“You are mine!” he yells, shaking Hiro, ignoring the pained sobs, ignoring how Hiro twists and pulls and claws. “You have _always_ been mine, and you will always _be mine_ until the day you die. You think I’ll let you go? You think I’ll ever give you to someone else? I love you, and that fucking makes you mine, boy.”

The next few minutes are a strange blur for Tadashi, who takes a perverse pleasure in the fight. There are threats, and more hair pulling. There are nails and fists and _teeth_ , God the teeth on that boy… He grins when Hiro manages to break the skin, laughs at the smear of blood on the boy’s mouth. Hiro is still crying, and Tadashi can finally find it in himself to find it beautiful once more.

The feeling sours quickly when Hiro shoots a hand up and tries to gouge out his eye.

He only lets go of Hiro’s hair for a second, but a second is all he needs. Hiro darts away, under his arm, out the door and down the stairs. Holding a hand over his eye, he snarls and gives chase.

“Brat!” he screams, and all he can picture is wrapping his fingers around that slim neck and squeezing until either there’s no air left or something snaps. Except when he finally finds Hiro, huddled behind the counter in the kitchen, he has the phone clutched in his hands and a nervous grimace on his face.

“I’ll call the cops,” he threatens. “I’ve already got the number put in, I’ll call them and tell them you hurt me, I’ll tell them everything.”

Chest heaving, Tadashi eyes the blood smeared on Hiro’s mouth, the bright red marks all over his arms that will bruise quickly. He looks at all the things the police can see and all he can think is ‘ _doctors._ ’ Yes, doctor’s with their grim faces, trying to talk and talk and never listening, trying to change him. No amount of sweet talking or fibbing will get him out of it this time, he knows.

Letting out an enraged scream, Tadashi runs from the house in a blind fury.

-

Three days he’s gone. Three days he spends wandering the city, not seeing the streets or buildings or people around him. Three days he thinks of his bloodied brother, of the panic and fear and hate in his eyes. Three days he spends huddled in alleyways, drawing ants out from under his fingernails. He eventually steals some tweezers from a convenience store and pulls one of his nails off, watching the ants scatter and crushing them. Remembering when he had done this as a child, remembering when he had contemplated crushing Hiro in the same way. Cutting off a small section of the bottom of his shirt, he wraps his bloodied finger and thinks of the ring of red around Hiro’s wrists that would have bloomed up black and blue by now.

Three days he spends first furious, then contemplative, and, finally, grieving.

-

He makes sure to be quiet as he closes the door behind him, but Aunt Cass is in the next room and sees him right away.

“Tadashi!” she says, startled. She begins to rush forward before stopping herself. Wringing her hands together, she worries her lip between her teeth and stares at him. “I, we’ve been so worried about you! You’ve been gone for days, are you okay?”

He looks at her, her tangled hair like she’s been constantly running her fingers through it. The dark circles under her eyes screaming of sleepless nights. He looks at her, disheveled and obviously worried, and his shoulders droop at the sight. “Aunt Cass,” Tadashi whispers.

 “Tadashi?” she asks, her voice dropping low. Her hands reach out a little, unsure. “Where have you been?”

“Where’s Hiro?” he asks instead, glancing around the room.

“He’s upstairs,” she answers slowly, eyes darting to the stairs. “He… he said you guys had a fight?” Tadashi nods slowly, looking at the stairs as well. He thinks he sees a shadow darting from the top of them, going further up, but he isn’t sure. “Do you want to talk about it?” she offers. Looking at her again, he notes the tension in her shoulders, mouth drawn in a tight line. He realizes that she’s scared.

“Is something wrong with me?” he asks instead of answering, surprised by the blank tone of his voice. Aunt Cass opens her mouth, then closes it soundlessly. Her throat works a little, and he can see her struggling with the instinct to comfort him versus telling him that, yes, there is something very wrong.

“Did Hiro tell you that?” Her voice is strained, and her eyes soften when Tadashi nods.

“That was… We fought about that,” he says, looking back to the stairs. “I… We said some things and… and I… Do you think he hates me?” His voice is so soft, and he hears her wounded little noise. “After everything I did… what I’ve done… Do you think he hates me?”

He surprises both of them when he starts to cry.

“Oh, Tadashi…” She comes to him finally, her arms wrapping around him firmly. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay. Hiro doesn’t hate you, I promise he doesn’t. You can go up and talk to him, and then we’ll get you help… I don’t care how many people we talk to, we’ll make this all better, I promise…”

Burying his face in her shoulder, he slowly raises his arms and wraps them around her back.

-

He doesn’t say anything as he walks into the room, but Hiro is standing close to the wall, far away from him. His eyes are wary, and he’s forgone the hoodie he normally wears; bruises stand in stark contrast against his skin. Tadashi looks at them and then to the floor. Hiro watches as he walks to the computer chair, keeping to the walls, making sure to keep the distance between them. He sits and glances up through his lashes, noticing that Hiro is a little less tense.

“I told Aunt Cass not to let you up here without her,” Hiro says stiffly, not moving an inch.

“I talked to her,” he tells him in a low voice. “She thinks we should work this out on our own.

“Does she?”

“I—“ he begins, but closes his mouth with a snap. Rubbing his hands over his face, he lets out a harsh breath. “I begged her. I told her everything and begged her to give me ten minutes. She’s not that far away, if that makes you feel better.” Gesturing vaguely towards the stairs, he continues, “Just one quick shout and she’ll come running.”

He isn’t sure how to feel when he sees Hiro relax even more at the knowledge.

“I didn’t think you’d come back.” Was that a quiver he heard in the boy’s voice? Maybe just his imagination. “I thought you’d just run off forever when I told you that I wasn’t your property.”

“I didn’t think I should come back.” He finally lifts his head, looking at his little brother imploringly. Slowly, trying not to startle him, Tadashi stands and moves to Hiro’s bed, closer to him. Hiro doesn’t come to join, but he doesn’t move away either when Tadashi sits on the edge of it, only a few feet away now. He takes it as permission to continue. “I figured you didn’t want me,” he says, internally flinching at his own words, “but… I wanted a chance to explain myself. For everything. I want to try and explain why… why I…”

“Why you were treating me like some lost little pet?” Hiro finishes bluntly. Tadashi swallows and nods.

“If that’s how it felt.” Hiro’s mouth twists into some semblance of a sneer, but it comes off tired and lost. They’re both on uneven ground, Tadashi realizes; Tadashi has never explained himself, and Hiro has never hated him like this. “Please. Please, let me do this right this time. Let me start from the beginning.” Hiro is silent for so long that Tadashi is sure that he will refuse, which will put so many things into jeopardy. He’s relieved when Hiro finally gives a terse nod.

Now comes the tricky part, he knows. How to tell this without lying, but still keeping the right things safe. What was safe though? What was good to tell his angry, freaked out, most precious object, without causing him to run away? Tadashi bites his lip, trying to sort through the words, trying to be as honest as he figures he can be.

Trying to get Hiro just a little bit closer.

“You don’t remember mom and dad,” he starts, deciding this is safer. He breathes heavily at Hiro’s confused look. “It’s okay that you don’t. I remember them. They… they worried about me. I’ve never… I’ve always been like this, Hiro. From the very start. Never connected with anyone, never wanted to. Not even them. They took me to doctors, they tried to work it out themselves… Nothing worked.” He looks Hiro dead in the eye, twisting his hands together. “Until you.”

“Me,” Hiro says, not a question. Tadashi nods.

“I’ve loved you from the day you were born. It… was hard to understand for me, for a couple months. I watched you though. I always watched you, asleep or awake. You were so _small_. Small and helpless. I wanted to keep you safe. And happy. Mom and dad loved you, but not as much as I did.” He says this with a fierceness he can’t stop, his skin tightening along his knuckles, the sides of his ribs. He feels his eyes bulge out, just slightly, and Hiro makes a small, startled noise at his tone. He breathes again, a little ragged, not wanting to scare Hiro.

“I’ve always loved you best, and… and I can’t do what you and Aunt Cass can do. I can’t feel things, unless they’re for you. I never thought it was strange. I just figured that that was how it was supposed to be. That it was meant to be, that you were made especially for me. I…” He swallows the words that almost come out, knowing that it won’t help. Knowing the telling Hiro that he’s brought not only Tadashi to life, but thousands of other things to life under his skin, won’t be the way to bring Hiro to him. “It’s like being warm for the first time in my life, when I’m around you,” he says instead, going for a different truth.

“You talk like you’re in love with me,” Hiro says, and Tadashi feels only a little bad at the way Hiro is trying to play it off as a joke when both of them know it isn’t. “You know how wrong that is, don’t you?” Hiro tells him after a minute of silence. He’s only a little hysterical, Tadashi notes, which implies that he’s always had an idea.

“Yes,” he says shortly, not feeling bad about it. “Doesn’t stop me from it though. But… it makes you uncomfortable, right?” Hiro nods. “I don’t want that,” Tadashi tells him softly. “I want you to love me, but I don’t want to lose you either.”

“You don’t want to lose me?” Hiro asks incredulously, holding his bruised arms forward like the accusation it is. “What’s this then? You’ve _already_ hurt me! You’ve been hurting me for years! What do you think telling me all this will change?”

“I don’t know,” he replies meekly, hunching his shoulders. “I don’t know. I needed to. I need to make you understand that I… that hurting you was… _I love you_. Hurting you like that wasn’t supposed to be part of it, but when I heard you say all that, I just couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t. I went crazy.”

“You need help,” Hiro tells him, taking just the tiniest step closer. Something low in Tadashi’s belly bursts in hot, slick delight at that, and his fingers twist helplessly in the blankets. Just a little closer…

“A lot of people have told me that,” he admits, keeping himself still. “Our parents, our aunt, teachers, other kids… Never mattered before now. Never really cared about them or anything they said.”

“Why?”

“They weren’t you. Nothing mattered if it wasn’t you. As long as you loved me, adored me, nothing else mattered.”

“But if it’s me saying it?”

“If it’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

“That’s it?” Hiro scoffs. He waves a hand impatiently, glaring. “Just like that? It wasn’t trying to own me, it wasn’t scaring everyone away, it wasn’t _attacking me_ that makes you realize you need the help? It’s me _telling you_?”

“For the most part,” Tadashi says, curling in on himself.

“Doesn’t it matter that you’ve been hurting me?”

“It matters that I’ve made you upset with me.”

“That’s not good enough!” Hiro shouts, taking another step forward.

Hiro never sees it coming.

Quick as lightening, Tadashi shoots his body forward, reaching out and gripping Hiro’s arm tightly. Spinning the boy around to land in his lap, he clasps both of his brother’s wrists in his hand like he had three days ago, bracing his legs tightly around Hiro’s. Pulling him close, Tadashi reaches behind him and pulls out the switchblade he hid in his back pocket, flipping the blade out and pressing it to Hiro’s throat.

“Scream,” he hisses between his teeth. Hiro complies, though Tadashi isn’t convinced the boy actually heard him, too scared to do anything else. He screams long and loud, and the silence echoes ominously when it finally ends. They wait in the silence, and Tadashi kisses the crown of Hiro’s head when the boy starts shaking.

“Aunt Cass…”

“I talked to her,” Tadashi says happily. “You know her. Wants to help, always wants to help. And she’s always _so worried_ about me. Say the right things, cry a little… It was so easy to get her to come to me.”

“No,” Hiro whimpers, beginning to struggle. Tadashi tightens his grip.

“Yes,” he assures. “I stabbed her in the back, just like she was always afraid of. She tried to get to the stairs, but. Well. Didn’t make it too far, now did she? Not after I caught up to her. I didn’t even give her the same courtesy scream I let you have. Of course I didn’t. She didn’t really deserve it, and it would have scared you. Never would have gotten you close, if you had heard that.” Hiro moans low in his throat. “And if you want any chance of getting out of this alive, you’ll stay still. You can do that for me, can’t you little bug?”

“Tadashi please…”

“Such a good boy,” Tadashi mutters, kissing the top of his head again. “I’m going to tell you everything. Let me start from the beginning,” he repeats, rubbing his cheek against his soft hair.

“I did love you from the start,” he assures. “I did, even though you were ugly and small. I snuck into your room every night and watched you sleep. I wanted to be close to you. I wanted to cut myself open and put you inside, lie to everyone that asked where you were. I wanted to feel you cry inside me and know you were _mine_.

“I did almost kill you though, one night.” He laughs a little at the memory of the moon shining on Hiro’s small, scrunched up face. How his fingers had pressed deeply into the baby’s cheek, how he had wondered what it would be like to snap that small neck. “You reminded me of the ants.”

“Ants,” Hiro mouths silently. Tadashi would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking at Hiro’s mouth.

“The ants I killed,” he says, feeling himself go distant. “They were small and stupid and I crushed them one by one. I spent an hour killing things that couldn’t defend themselves, and I could have done it to you. I could have, but I couldn’t have either. You were mine. You were _mine_ , and the ants wouldn’t let me.” Hiro makes a small sound, panic and confusion, and Tadashi curls down over him, feels the way Hiro’s body has to conform to his. “I thought I killed those ants,” he whispers in the boy’s ear, “but they didn’t die. They moved inside me, and they brought friends. I’m crawling with bugs inside my skin, and they love you. They love you like I do.”

“Please,” Hiro says again, voice thick.

“You don’t believe me,” he sighs, unsurprised. “I can show you though. I can show you how you make me feel, and you’ll understand. You’ll understand _everything._ ” He shifts his hand away from Hiro’s wrist, instead wrapping his forearm tightly around his waist, and brings the knife down to his own arm. He slices his flesh open, breathing heavily at the pain and blood. It bubbles out dark red, almost black, and large red ants crawl out sluggishly. Some of them skitter down his arm to his fingers, crawling excitedly, but most stay near the wound, crawling slowly and tracking small trails of blood.

“See?” he asks, enraptured. “Do you see now? How much I love you? What you do to you?”

“I—“

“It’s not always ants,” he interrupts. “It started as spiders, actually. The night of their funeral. I tore my arms apart, I bled everywhere, and they just kept coming and coming and coming… because I love you. You brought them to life, you brought _me_ to life. You’re mine, you were always mine and it was just proof. It was proof that I could keep you, because no one else could have done this to me. “

“Tadashi, I don’t… I don’t see anything.”

He freezes, can’t help but freeze. His heart spasms a little in his chest, and his own hurt noise escapes his lips. Opening his mouth, he thinks he’ll scream, but instead he just sets his lips gently against Hiro’s cheek, breathing out shakily.

“You don’t see anything?” he asks, unable to keep the quiver out of his voice.

“Blood,” Hiro says quickly, sounding shaken. “Lots of blood…”

“But not the ants,” he says dully, unsurprised when Hiro shakes his head minutely. “You don’t see them. Could you ever see them? Anything?”

“No… I’ve… I’ve never seen any bugs.”

“You don’t have your own bugs?” Hiro doesn’t answer, but Tadashi doesn’t really need him to. He slides the knife back up the Hiro’s throat, gliding over the skin as he goes. Hiro moans low in his throat again, shivering once more. “So you’ve never loved me.”

“I did,” Hiro protests weakly. “I do.”

“Just not the right way.”

“You’re way isn’t right,” Hiro says, sounding indignant for the first time since Tadashi had grabbed him. He presses the knife tighter against Hiro’s throat, silencing him.

“Keep quiet, boy. You really think you’re in a position to argue with me?”

“Why are you doing this?” Hiro finally asks, and Tadashi feels tears drip down to his arm. Tadashi leans down and bites his neck, delighting in the pained yelp it earns him.

“I wish I had killed you,” he says, feeling a black wave of anger wash over him, thinking again of little baby Hiro, sleeping and trusting himself to be safe. “I should have snapped your fucking neck, I should have never let you have this much power over me. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do if you don’t want me?”

As if to answer his question, he hears the faint sound of sirens coming down the street.

“God damnitt!” he screams. Hiro begins to sob in his arms, half relieved and half terrified. Tadashi begins to rock slowly, tucking Hiro closer, listening to the sirens grow closer and closer. Finally deciding that, yes, they are in fact coming to this house, he sighs. “Hiro.”

“Tadashi?” Hiro asks, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.

“I love you,” he says, simple and honest for what is probably the first time in his life. “I love you, and those people are coming to help you. I love you, and those people want you safe.”

“’dashi…” Tadashi leans down and presses a kiss to his brother’s lips. They’re soft and wet under his own, trembling and unmoving. He keeps his eyes open, drinking in the sight of his brother as he’s always wanted him.

Pulling away, he wrenches the boy’s head back against his shoulder and slices.

-

He’s sitting on the stairs when the police break into their house. His arms are soaked with blood, not all of it his own. He watches two armed men walk in, guns held in front of them, scanning the house for whatever had caused the screaming the neighbors heard. They see his aunt, collapsed in a pool of blood at the foot of the stairs, and then they see him. They see his bloody arms, the knife he’s flipping slowly in his hand.

Both the guns are trained on him in an instant.

Tadashi takes a single second to wonder at the way life could be. That his life, that all the love he feels for his brother’s cooling body upstairs, could be reduced to this moment. To the way he can feel the blood on his hands becoming tacky, to the memory of the taste of his brother’s lips against his own. All of it, reduced to this one moment and to tomorrow’s obituaries. He wishes he had had more time to love and keep his brother, that Hiro had just wanted him back…

“Drop the weapon!” one screams. “Get on the ground!” the other screams as well.

Tadashi grins, his teeth bloody from when he’d licked at the blood that had spurted from his precious baby’s neck, and grips the knife tighter.

Twelve years is more than a lot of people ever get.

“Have you ever been in love?” he asks calmly, before lunging.

**Author's Note:**

> [So I'm officially going to Hell. Someone wanna call a priest and have them banish me?](http://www.glitterpukesoul.tumblr.com/)


End file.
